What is the difference between HDD and SSD?
Many laptops and computers now come with new SSD storage discs that may replace traditional HDDs in the future and make them a bit of the past. The question that puzzles many of you is, what is the difference between SSD and HDD, and which is better? Do I buy this or that?
SSD flash drives
SSD is a shortcut to Solid State Drive. SSD storage disks can be considered a large copy of the USB Flash Disk and are more complex where there is no diskette or flash disks in these disks and the data and files are saved in microchips. Each type of SSD has a controller that reads and writes data and determines the speed of these disks.
SSDs come in standard sizes of 1.8, 2.5 and 3.5 inches and are connected to the board by a SATA or mini-SATA connector that is often found on laptops.
HDD type HDD
HDD is an abbreviation for Hard Disk Drive, an old technology still used today. It first appeared in 1956, meaning that the technology is about 57 years old. These disks use a magnetic needle tip and moving parts inside so you hear the hard disk sound when it is working intensively. The speed of these disks is about 5400 rpm or 7200, some up to 15000 rpm, but these disks are often dedicated to servers.
The advantage of this type of disk is that it comes in large capacities as 1 TB capacity is very normal these days and is cheap compared to SSD disks.
HDDs come in standard sizes of 2.5 and 3.5 inches and often use SATA connections.
Comparison between the two types:
|
Property |
HDD Disks |
SSD disks |
|
Power / battery consumption |
Power consumption of 6-7 watts |
Power consumption of 2-3 watts increases battery life |
|
price |
Cheap (about $ 0.075 / GB) |
Expensive (about $ 1 for GB) |
|
Storage space |
High capacity up to 4TB |
Up to 512 GB of capacity for laptops |
|
Estimated time to enter the system |
Rate 40 seconds |
Rate 22 seconds |
|
Sound and vibration |
There are sounds and vibrations due to the animation inside |
There are no sounds or vibrations |
|
The resulting heat |
Higher than SSD disks due to the higher animation and consumption of energy |
Low heat due to lack of moving parts and because of its lower energy consumption |
|
The life span |
1.5 million hours |
2 million hours |
|
Read and write speed |
From 50 to 120 Mbps |
From 200 to 500 Mbps |
|
Quickly unpack files |
Slower than SSD disks |
Faster than HDD 30% |
|
Affected by the magnetic field? |
The magnetic field can completely erase the data |
Not affected |
From the table above you notice that SSDs outperform the HDD in most properties but does that mean they are better?
This depends on the person.
if I were:
- You need high storage space
- Do not want to pay a lot of money
- Do not worry much about the speed of the system boot or open files
Then you have HDD
If you:
- Ready to pay much more money for faster performance
- Do not worry much about storage space
So you have SSDs
If you want a compromise, you can buy a SSD disk with as little as 128 or 256 GB that you use for your operating system and a hard disk drive with as much space as the 2TB you use to put your files.